<firstimage=”//static.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assaultlogo.jpg”>What many people don’t know about me is that I used to be a die-hard gamer. I would play team-match Medal of Honor with guys and girls around the globe until three in the morning, then I’d get up the next morning and hit the game even before I had breakfast. Yes, I was not always the pillar of the community that you see here before you.

Since I’ve played almost every FPS game that has hit the market since the 1980’s, I’m kind of picky about quality. So, when I decided to do a review of the most popular open-source first-person shooter game on SourceForge called AssaultCube, I expected to play for five minutes and then move on.

AssaultCube Offers Realism & Smooth Gameplay

AssaultCube is available for Windows, Linux or Mac. The moment I installed and launched AssaultCube, I knew that I was in for a treat. Type in your nickname, set the screen resolution and you’re off and running. You’ll see yourself and your teammates in the map at the upper left of the screen. Obviously, you won’t see your opponents – you have to hunt them down!

Right off the bat I noticed the graphics were impeccable, and the game creators took all of the best parts of the most popular FPS games and incorporated them into this one. All controls are available that gamers expect – crouch, jump, stealth, quick weapon select, and everything else.

Movement is smooth and fast – and on a standard Windows 7 laptop I experienced absolutely no lag or skipping of the video. I noticed that the AI works well. Based on the difficulty settings, your team and your opponents will either fight hard, or run around in circles like idiots – in Single Player mode it’s up to you!

I also noticed that absolutely everything in this game is easily customizable. All video, sound, head-up display settings – everything. Whatever sort of FPS game experience that you’re used to with your other games, you can likely customize this one to suit your tastes.

The same goes for all of the keyboard mapping controls. You could completely remap all of the keys if you like, and bind any key to the commands. I found that the default follows the standard control setup for most games, so I pretty much left everything as is.

During game play, I noticed that the programmers really took every little detail into account. You’ll see muzzle flashes not only out of the guns, but also reflected on the walls. You’ll see your reflection when you stand and look at water, and you’ll see your bullets striking the walls or objects – although objects don’t react quite as realistically as they could (if at all).

The real beauty of this game is the environment. There are a whole selection of game maps to choose from that offer an entirely different look and feel – different places to hide, to climb up onto, or to dive down into. Every map will require different tactical maneuvers, so the fun really never stops – and I haven’t even got to multi-player mode yet!

When you choose multi-player mode, you can set up a LAN game on your network, or you can choose from the available game servers around the world. I checked it around midnight my time and found that the top 10 or so servers had plenty of active players.

I found that multi-player mode also ran smoothly, even during chaotic and active moments in the game. The only time I saw a few skips was when there was about seven players on each team battling it out in a courtyard. But even then, it barely lasted a second. Playing this game in multi-player mode brought back a whole lot of fun memories from my earlier days of FPS gaming. In fact, I think I blew about forty minutes just playing while I should have been writing this article!

I know my priorities though, so as the enemy shot my buddy who I was supposed to be providing cover-fire for, I took my last screenshot and got back to the article. John445, wherever you are – sorry, buddy!

Overall, I can see why this game has had almost 30,000 downloads on SourceForge. It is addictive, very fun, and if you have any leaning toward easily getting addicted to multiplayer FPS wargames – I would advise you to avoid it at all cost, or kiss your free time goodbye.

Ryan has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering. He's worked 13 years in automation engineering, 5 years in IT, and now is an Apps Engineer. A former Managing Editor of MakeUseOf, he's spoken at national conferences on Data Visualization and has been featured on national TV and radio.